Fernando Gonzaga Bautista

On March 10, 1908, Fernando "Tatay" Gonzaga Bautista was born in Tondo, Manila. He was the second of four sons of zarzuelistas Placido Bautista and Benedicta Gonzaga and grew up by the banks of the Canal de la Reina.

Fernando Tatay Bautista

As a young boy, he joined older brother Vicente in peddling Liwayway magazine and haunting the docks daily as a bootblack. He attended different primary schools and the Manila North (present day Arellano) High School, before putting in four years at Philippine Normal School for an Elementary Teacher's Certificate. He became a plumber's assistant to continue with his studies. He wanted to take up Law, but the family couldn't afford it, so it was decided that he would be the maestro.

At 20, he started teaching at Sta. Ana Elementary School at the same time attending evening classes at University of the Philippines (UP) at Padre Faura, where his future wife, Rosa Castillo, was a Botany classmate while also serving as a model teacher at the Magdalena Elementary School in Sta. Cruz. In the senior teachers examination in 1935, Rosa came out first and Fernando second.

It took Fernando seven years to gain a Master of Arts in Education degree from UP. In 1936 he was appointed assistant principal of the Gregorio del Pilar Elementary School in Binondo (present day Jose Abad Santos H.S., and formerly the Meisic Elementary where he had studied for Grades 1 and 2). In 1937, he became principal of the Rizal Elementary School in Tayuman, the youngest in Manila at age 29, and with the highest degree. A year later he and Rosa tied the knot and had their honeymoon in Baguio.

In June of 1940, an offer came to teach in UP Baguio, and Fernando grabbed it. Eventually, Rosa taught at the Baguio City High School.

Wartime saw the Tondo boy turn to his resourceful self, engaging in buy-and-sell and opening a canned goods stall in the Baguio market. He rode an open freight truck to take vegetables and brooms down to Manila every fortnight, and came back with grocery items purchased in Divisoria.

After the war, he served as a janitor for the Americans, just so he could put food on the table for his fast-growing family. He erected a shanty on Session Road across Pines Theater, and set up a store and a barbershop. His reputation as a former UP professor led to an offer to help turn an unprofitable hotel into a school building. Baguio Colleges opened in January 1946 with Bautista as executive dean and registrar, and Rosa as principal of the elementary and high school and dean of the Normal department.

Tatay and Nanay Rosa Bautista
(Tatay Nanding and Nanay Rosa Bautista courtesy of Dr. Zorba Bnn R. Bautista, grandson of Nanay Rosa and Tatay Nanding Bautista and current Chairman, Board of Directors University of Baguio)
Two years later, Tatay Nanding and Nanay Rosa resigned to set up their own school, the Baguio Technical and Commercial Institute, which opened with 89 students and 5 fulltime teachers.

Tatay explained:

"Our idea was to produce young men and women who are technically trained to assist in the immediate rehabilitation of Baguio and the country. What was urgently needed was a vocational school offering courses that required relatively short periods to complete."

The school transferred to the UB site on General Luna.

In 1951 it was renamed a college. Bautista also helped establish the Baguio Military Institute in 1956, but he soon had to devote full time to Baguio Tech, which was growing by leaps and bounds, until it became a university on August 7, 1969. Tatay served as its first president, but gave way to oldest son Fernando when he was elected a delegate to the 1971 Constitutional Convention.

Tatay also became known as "the durable old man of sports," attending, as a Philippine Amateur Athletic Federation official. He single-handedly framed the constitution and by-laws of the Asian Amateur Athletic Association.

In 1987, Nanay Rosa passed away, at age 79. In 1989, Tatay remarried, at age 80. His bride was the 75-year-old widow Constancia Y. Guevara, also a teacher in Tondo, and who had been a childhood acquaintance. They enjoyed 13 loving years together, until Tatay passed away on October 9, 2002.